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needing help

04-14-2010, 08:37 PM

hi all, new to the posting, but not new to surfing all the posts on here.
love the site, now lets see if i can get some help of any sorts. here it goes, i am a full time employee at a local boad manufacturer, yes, aluminium and all welded too. problem is, i am trying to start out a side business welding and fabricating all sorts of things, bumpers and anything to accessorize motor vehicles from snowmobiles, to bikes, quads to trucks. i need help getting some good equipment at real good prices as i am on a very limited budget. unfortunately i purchased a small wire welder a couple years ago.... wrong color and wrong size.... its a lincoln easy mig 140 running on 110 volts. i since upgraded my power at the shop, and also realized i need bigger....
here is what i need first and foremost, followed by whats needed next.
--mig capable of welding close to 1/2 inch aluminum with push-pull gun, but can be switched over to steel welding.
next i'll be looking for an ac/dc tig and also a plasma.
not looking for new, i am used to welding with old rx wirefeeder and old rx pistol guns, havent had the chance yet to try out the new millermatic 350p the shop just aquired.
yes i tend to lean towards blue (miller) although for tig/plasma i was looking at everlast.
i live in the interior of british columbia Canada.
anyone have some leads on the required equipment? or some good deals for new???
any help is appreciated.
thanks guys
roger

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I can relate to that. I bought my 350P and already owned an XR gun, which I converted to a spool gun to use with the 350P. I also already owned a Python gun connected to a Cobramatic feeder, which I also converted to use with the 350P, so I was able to spread the cost over time and do mine on the pay-as-you-go plan.

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Although it seems strange to talk about it, but your time is valuable. Time for friends, family, work, sleep etc. You have already burned 40+ hrs at your day job. Fooling around at night, with inferior/cheap tools is not worth it and even more painful because you are doing this after working 8,9,10 hrs. Not to mention its tough enough to find parts at 8pm at night to fix the stuff that broke. Consider getting the good stuff but rather than loading up a credit card, consider leasing...

In the early days of the Internet, I was working for a company that was spending $4000 a month to connect between to buildings 35 miles apart. That was basically $2000 to the phone company for dedicated T1 line and $2000 for the high availability maintenance contract.

I threw away that equipment and took the money to lease about $200,000.00 worth of equipment - including true Internet routers (both sides of the connection) with a hot spare etc etc. A mini-mainframe computer (I said it was many years ago...) and upgraded things like printers, plotters etc.
Bottom line, this $4000/month got us a lot of stuff.

We asked for an 'operating lease' in which we got zero equity. At the end of 5 years, the leasing company comes and picks up the stuff and we start the new lease for new equipment. Sort of like a cell phone contract. Since 5 year old computer equipment is essentially worthless, we paid for the equipment and then some.
But, and this is a big 'but', since we never owned the equipment, and never had any capital in the equipment, the tax implications were very favorable. Made taxes simple (it was a pure operating expense). We had a good number to charge our customers - we new already how much we used the equipment, now we had a cost associated and we could charge appropriately.
So rather than tell your customer you need to make profit so you can buy new equipment, you tell your customer, look my expenses are xxx.

You will be responsible for the maintenance of the equipment - it has to be returned in working order, with normal wear and tear.

Of course with the leasing company, starting your own business, you will have to personally guarantee the loan.

If I remember the process. We put together a list of all the equipment we wanted to buy, which vender gave us the best quote, and then shopped about 4 or 5 leasing companies. Picked the ones that gave us the best terms. Now they wanted to give us "lease to own" terms but we insisted, for tax and contract reasons, on an 'operating lease'. The leasing company actually placed the order and just had everything shipped to our address.

What is the risk? If you can't make the payments, you return the equipment and you are liable for the balance. (Early termination clause).

Talk to your accountant (or go get an accountant). Paying more than your fair share of taxes is for the birds. I imagine in Canada the tax implications are different but should be similar.

Can't hurt to ask around.

I'm just a hobbyist, but I can say for out of position aluminum MIG, I don't know how they do it/did it before pulse. Be careful of a used 350P in that some are 3 phase only. The ones with a side panel that has a slot that says the current voltage I believe can all be converted to single phase (manual linking). Oh, and I'm not a big fan for plasma on aluminum. Its definitely not as clean of a cut as steel. Consider a nice jig saw for up to 1/4. A band saw for bigger than that. Cutting aluminum is relatively easy on sharp steel tools if you watch your speed and keep the aluminum from clogging up the blades.

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thanks for all the insights guys.
oh by the way. the company i work for builds pleasure and comercial aluminium boats, and all the aluminium is cut on a cnc plasma table... and we do a lot of plasma by hand too.... its clean if you crank it up and have good equipment ( tips and such) plus a good clean and dry airsource is required.

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thanks for all the insights guys.
oh by the way. the company i work for builds pleasure and comercial aluminium boats, and all the aluminium is cut on a cnc plasma table... and we do a lot of plasma by hand too.... its clean if you crank it up and have good equipment ( tips and such) plus a good clean and dry airsource is required.

So I have a 60 Amp Hypertherm (see sig) and it will cut aluminum like butter, but the kerf width seems really dependent on travel speed. So unless I'm perfect on my travel speed I seem to get an ugly looking cut (wide, then narrow kerf). That would be 75psi clean air on top of 1/4" aluminum.

Am I doing something wrong?

To get the clean air I have going into the plasma a particulate filter and a coalescing one.

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aryou using the appropriate tip? high amp tip on high amp setting... and low amp tip on low amp setting... mix them up and you get wierd cutting patterns.
also need sufficient cfm of air not just the right pressure...
hope that helps...